Rescue Wife!

Most people I know already know I was in a car wreck on April 29th, and that there has been considerable physical discomfort involved. I have a broken rib and damage to my right leg, with the highlight being my right foot. I had reconstructive surgery on this foot last Tuesday (I asked the surgeon to make my foot look like Britney's), and recovery hasn't been an overwhelmingly comfortable process.

I'm often not an easy or compliant patient, and my arguing doesn't get any smarter while I'm drugged. And BOY HOWDY am I drugged.

Oxycodone, Percocet, quaaludes, peanut butter pretzels - name the debilitating, addictive substance and I'm ON IT or trying to be on it. (Later today I'm gonna take down my glitterbug crushed velvet curtains and smoke them, because, you guys, can you even IMAGINE?!)

Right now I am essentially a walking evidence locker of drugs trying to express my human side.  My human side reveals itself when I fall asleep in the middle of speaking, then wake up later and throw aside blankets and pillows because they got between me and the bathroom, and I GOTTA GO!

Getting my feeble carcass up and down from the sofa involves disengaging the swamp cooler attached to my leg cast (ice goes into cooler, cold water gets pumped out and around my foot to keep the swelling down), so me having a spontaneous bathroom emergency panic helps nobody. *OPEN NOTE TO MY HELPFUL FAMILY: PLEASE LEAVE MY CRUTCHES WITHIN REACH WHEN YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE. AND ALSO I WILL NEED A NEW OUTFIT BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS; BRING SOMETHING STYLISH*

Wife has gone to the Target pharmacy to get me more pills, and I just snorted a packet of Alpine Apple Cider powder because I was alone and I wanted to.  Now my every sneeze is excruciating, and yet . . . it also brings the little Christmas cheer we need right this very moment.

During this whole injury process Wife has been . . . a revelation?  A hallucination? This hard-working, hard-driving badass woman has geared waaaaay down and become the kindest, most ridiculously patient person THIS patient has ever met. She put her entire business on hold and has given me the world's best, kindest care all week long.

I get drugs every two hours, and some additional pills that are on a weirdo schedule involving math, and Wife has been in charge of all of it.

It goes like this:

ME: "G'night, Wifffff..."
HER: "Good night, Sweetheart, I'll wake you in two hours for your <time warp> WAKE UP NOW, IT'S TIME TO TAKE YOUR THING SWALLOW THIS.  Get your tongue out of the way."

Here's the thing, though: although there is truth in everything I have written, it's not the BIGGEST TRUTH.  The BIG truth is something that's less entertaining and more surprising to me.

Wife has kept my schedule, all night every night. She has kept me to my medication schedule, and wakes me at all hours of the clock.  She wakes first.

When I wake, I am tranquilized, happy and groggy. I am NOT smart. But every single time this woman wakes me, I am aware of what she is doing. I am aware that she has abandoned her sleep, and has made MY care her first priority.

I have never felt so thoroughly cared for; so comprehensively loved. 

I get this feeling a LOT.  When we wake in the night to the sound of the medication alarm, she is groggy and upbeat and lovely. Unless I need help getting to the bathroom, we go right back to sleep.

We do this many, many times a night.  Each time, I cannot keep myself from telling this woman how loved and cared for I feel.

When I am NOT medicated and narcoleptic, I am a mildly self-centered control freak.  My week has included many things I do not wish for myself, including my needing help bathing, dressing, and cleaning up what I thought was rogue urine but was really water that escaped from the cooling tube inside my splint. No lie, though - for a little bit there I just wanted to hide in the corner.

Many times now each day, I get to experience my wife's selflessness and unconditional love.  That's what a marriage is supposed to be all about when my giant ego isn't in the way.

I have to say, I like it. When Wife wakes me at the oddest hours, I wake with a giant grin on my face.

The BIGGEST TRUTH is this: I'll be damned if having a busted foot isn't one of the warmest, most loving experiences of my whole life. Having a busted foot may even have allowed me to learn how to be a better married person. We'll see.